Is your fascination with Horror exclusive to fiction?

[Ash28M]

Not only have I always been a fan of Horror films but I've also been fascinated in serial killers and the evil that people do.

The two interests are completely different as one is fiction and one factual yet at the same time they both have an element of exploring fear from a safe distance.

Thinking back to my childhood my favorite animals and dinosaurs were always the predators, I was also fascinated with mythical monsters and even natural disasters, anything that could harm me.

The strange thing is that at the same time, I am repulsed by real word violence and feel uncomfortable watching an MMA fight.

I would like to see if having an interest in the darker areas of life period is something horror fans share or has it always just been fictional horror for you?

[msw7]

Pretty much just fictional horror for me. When it's real I empathize too much with the victims, and it really depresses/upsets me. When it's fictional I enjoy watching annoying people die :)

edit: I guess I don't mind "based on true stories" type of movies/TV shows. But I doubt I would read a historical account of a serial killer or similar horror. Well, I probably would, but I would be as depressed as fascinated. I don't seek it out, but might enjoy it if I found it.

[Stige]

read and watch movies about serial killers, the study and investigation fascinate me
could do without the crime scene photos

but I enjoy fictional horror, where as I think my god and feel weird by the true life stuff

[horrorlover]

I prefer fictional based horror films. I remember getting freaked out by Helter Skelter the made for TV movie when I saw it as a kid.

[dave13]

Doesn't everybody have a fascination with death? Natural disasters, detective shows, murder trials, car accidents, wars, religions...they're all about death, and they're all things that attract a whole lot of attention. I see no reason to be ashamed by it, its a completely natural thing to obsess over, and we do it constantly. I think its an interesting topic to discuss here, but i don't think it relates to my love of horror at all. A few years ago I looked up and read the history of people like John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy. They're household names, and I felt like I should know why. For the same reason as I feel like I should know who Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln was - they're a part of our modern history, and I was curious. What I read was fascinating. And very upsetting. I didn't enjoy it at all, and as msw said, it left me feeling really depressed. But I couldn't stop reading until it was over. It was nothing like watch a horror movie. Yeah, there are some times when the lines get blurred, like when watching a movie like Zodiac, for example. Or a film like Schindler's List. But once I can imagine that the terrible events before me represent things that happened in reality, they lose any feeling of fun. They're still good movies, even movies that I "like" watching, but for different reasons and different feelings.

[Workshed]

Only fiction, thanks, and mostly kept to supernatural horror at that. "Real" horror doesn't interest me at all, with a few exceptions (Death Proof being one of them), and I especially avoid actual true life horror.

[wago70]

I only like fiction horror. I love the fantasy of it all. Completely turned off of true life horror - whatever they may be.

[bigdaddyhorse]

I also prefer fiction based, but find real shit (or shit that could be real, like no monsters, zombies, etc.) to often be scarier.

[Anthropophagus]

As a student of sociology and psychology, I do have an interest in criminology and abnormal behaviour, including serial killers. I will watch documentaries and films based on true accounts but more to educate myself rather than entertain myself.
I'd never wear a Manson shirt or any of that shit, and I personally found the Crime and Serial Killer Museum in Niagara Falls to be disturbing as Hell and exploitative trash.
Fictional horror is what I most enjoy, but real crime and horror like that recent case of the eleven year old who was allegedly gang raped by up to 28 perpetrators in Texas is often the scariest stuff. What some people are capable of is mind numbing.

[maybrick]

I have a passing interest in real life horror, but as anthro said I draw the line at glorifying the crimes of serial killers. I'll read criminology books written by Colin Wilson and check out a documentary from time to time, but as a general rule I don't like to watch horror movies about serial killers when the subject matter is treated too realistically. I watch movies to escape from reality. The evening news is sometimes disturbing enough.

On a similar subject, every once in a while I come across somebody in life who thinks that just because I'm into horror movies that I'm also into all things morbid. A casual acquaintance of mine was more than mildly surprised that when I was looking for a new job a few years back I had absolutely no interest in working for a funeral home. Well, excuusse me if I don't want to look at and handle dead bodies all of the time. If I had that kind of job I'd probably stop watching horror movies altogether. Similarly, my brother in law once kept going on about this store he found that dealt with T shirts that were printed with gravestone rubbings. I was polite about it, but he was shocked when my wife later told him that I found the exploitation of the dead for financial gain pretty offensive and sacreligious.

And the moral of the story is: stereotyping can be fun.

[shape22]

I enjoy reading non-exploitative books about serial killer investigations. And I enjoy watching similarly fact-based TV programs and movies. But there's definitely a line where they're no longer enjoyable for me. And that line starts at the cheap, direct-to-video flicks about Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, etc. It's one thing to make a film like Zodiac, which includes re-enactments of real murders. But a film that uses the same material to titillate really turns me off. I don't like seeing real people reduced to unsympathetic cardboard cut-outs in films that exploit their murders as setpieces designed to make kids giggle.

As much as I love horror film gore, I never enjoy seeing photos or videos of real people or animals dying. And I go out of my way to avoid that sort of thing. Cannibal Holocaust is a powerful film--but not one that I'd ever want to see again. The real animal violence and extremely realistic and ugly human on human violence really repulses me.

To piggyback on what Maybrick said, most people assume that anyone who laughs at Kevin Bacon getting impaled with a spear while he's having sex would enjoy watching snuff films and videos of animals getting tossed into a wood chipper. It's bothered me on some occasions too. But the older I get the more I feel bad for them. Most of them are uptight morons who don't recognize the difference between real suffering and entertainment--or that there's something cathartic about watching horror films.

[DVD-fanatic-9]

Are we talking about styles of movies or enjoyment gotten from... like: news reports of horrIBLE things happening to people?

As for styles of horror movies, real or fantasy- I just do not want my intelligence insulted and so many of the new millennium "based on a true story" shit does exactly that. They make whatever the hell they want to and cheaply attach "Based on a True Story," even if it IS based on a true stroy. I didn't feel like Wolf Creek was realistic while watching it. But something like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was smart and interesting. Because it wasn't set-up like a typical slasher or a wannabe Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In fact, it was like the movie that showed us what something like The Deliberate Stranger was afraid to (although I'm not exactly being fair, I haven't seen that film in quite some time). What the other serial killer movies didn't (barring Maniac, but I still think that thing's a piece of shit, insulting to my intelligence, and a wannabe Psycho).

Do I want more realistic themed horror? Absolutely not. What I'd prefer is fantasy horror with more realistic behavior and reactions from the characters. Namely, the stock of victims. I feel like practically 100% of the characters from today's horror are not believable. They seem completely fake.